Gwion on the BBC news

Michael Gove helped one of my sons get on the BBC news today

Westminster Conference Next December

December 3 and 4. Double click above (still not readable probably. See here)

New Doctor Who - Offbeat suggestions

1. Jose Mourinho
2. Vince Cable
3. Boris Johnson
4. Psy
5. David Bowie
6. Julian Fellowes
7. Johnny Rotten
8. Danny Boyle
9. Shane McGowan
10. Prince Edward

Lord's Day June 9 2013

We had lunch together yesterday as we do from time to time. Always a good time, although numbers were down rather on this occasion. Some were unwell and one or two were away and although the were some visitors not all stayed. In the morning I preached chiefly on church disciplines from 1 Corinthians  5 and then in the evening some 16 were present to hear the last of the series on Numbers 36, considering our heritage in Christ. One unusual thing was four little girls in the Sunday School. I can't remember when we had so many girls around.

The nervous nineties

In the news today were two separate items about famous men in their nineties currently in hospital. We wish them well.

I went by

Being in that part of Newport again the other day reminded me of the Jools Holland/Louise Marshall song of a few years ago. I took photos and intended to make a video like this one but never got round to it. Holland apparently wrote it after a concert one night in Newport and hearing a couple arguing.

Novelists 28 George Meredith

George Meredith (1828-1909) is not a popular writer today and I certainly have not read anything by him. He was born in Portsmouth. His mother died when he was five and at 14 he was sent to a Moravian School in Germany for two years. He read law and was articled as a solicitor but abandoned that for journalism and poetry. He collaborated with Edward Peacock (son of Thomas Love Peacock) on a privately circulated literary magazine and married Peacock's 28 year old widowed sister Mary Ellen Nicolls (1849). He collected his early writings, first published in periodicals, into Poems, published to some acclaim 1851. In 1856 he posed as the model for The Death of Chatterton by Pre-Raphaelite Henry Wallis. His wife ran off with Wallis, 1858, and died three years later. His collection of "sonnets" Modern Love came of this experience as did his first major novel The Ordeal of Richard Feverel.

He married Marie Vulliamy (1864) and settled in Surrey, continuing to write novels and poetry. He had a keen understanding of comedy and his Essay on Comedy (1877) is still quoted in discussions of the history of comic theory. In The Egoist (1879) he applies some of his theories of comedy. This work and others also highlight the subjugation of women during the Victorian period. During most of his career, he had difficulty achieving popular success. His first truly successful novel was Diana of the Crossways (1885).

He supplemented his often uncertain writer's income with a job as a publisher's reader and had many friends in the literary world. He succeeded Tennyson as president of the Society of Authors (1905) and was appointed OM by King Edward VII.

Marshall Lytle

I thought the death of Marshall Lytle, bass player with Bill Haley and the Comets, at the end of May (he was 79) was a good excuse to put this up from 1955. The bassist developed a lively stage presence, throwing his bass into the air, lifting it over his shoulder and riding it like a horse. The group landed their biggest hit in 1955 after a version of their classic recording of "Rock Around the Clock" appeared in the opening credits of the movie Blackboard Jungle.

Westminster Conference Papers 2012 Truth at any cost

Truth at all costs or Truth at any cost is the printed version of the Westminster Conference for last year. It contains all six papers. It can be obtained for £7.50. This year's conferences is on Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th December 2013.

1662 and All That	Lee Gatiss	p.7
Wales and Three Eminent Ejectees	Andrew A Davies	p.23
Hagiography and History	Andrew Atherstone	p.41
Blaise Pascal: Truth through the Mind and the Heart	David Gregson	p.61
Christian Attitudes to Islam: an Historical Survey	Roger W Welch	p.73
Henry Martyn: Pioneer Missionary	Peter Law	p.101

National Gallery Seurat

We've reached the Post-impressionists and last Tuesday we headed again to the National Gallery. We looked at a Van Gogh chair and Cezanne's bathers but the bulk of the time was spent looking at Bathers at Asnieres by Georges Seurat. The first thing you notice about it is its size. It is a massive picture. By now we are used to pictures of all sorts of things but in 1884 this was not an expected subject - a bunch of workers enjoying a rest on the river bank. It apparently took two years to paint and was not greeted with great enthusiasm, never being sold in Seurat's short life time. It is undoubtedly a great painting, however, and to hear an expert talk about it and to spend some time just looking at it was a joy and an education. The boy in the water appears to be whistling or making a duck call. Is that aimed at some creature in the water but out of shot. The dog and the other human figures seem to be looking that way. In the distance a boat can be seen with a lady and gentleman being rowed by a man. The woman appears to be hiding from her view the working class types in the main picture by strategic use of a white parasol. Factories can be seen in the distance. Seurat had a colour theory that involved placing colours next to each other so that the paint is not mixed on the palette, rather the eye does the mixing. He went on to develop pointillism. That is what gives the picture its incredible sunniness. As I looked at the picture the geometric shapes began to stand out - straight lines, circles and triangles. The more one looks the more one sees.

The Docrines of Grace in an Unexpected Place

It was a great joy to be at the Evangelical Library in London last Monday for the 2013 Annual Lecture. It was very encouraging on all fronts. A crowd of may be as many as fifty gathered. The lecture was a blessing in that it was given not only by an expert in his field (the speaker Mark Stevenson completes his PhD in this very subject shortly) but one with the rare ability to give his material in a popular format of just the right length. Given that Brethrenism and especially their Calvinistic leanings is pretty much untrodden ground for most of us, this lecture was something special indeed. Even the question time was excellent with good questions and precise and informative answers. We are so glad that Canadian Mr Stevenson was willing and able to come from the States mainly to give this lecture.

So what was said? Audio CDs are available from the Library and I hope to put the lecture on the website in written form in due time. Meanwhile, to summarise, although the Brethren are not know for their Calvinism there was a distinct Calvinistic bent in their early leaders. Mr Stevenson highlighted this for us by showing firstly their view of the condition of fallen humanity and secondly their view of election or predestination. He focused chiefly on J N Darby but quoted others.

Mark Knoll has described the early Brethren as "unrelentingly Calvinistic". This is seen in Darby's references to the total ruin of man. Man is free to will but not free in his will. See here for a letter from 1872 full of Calvinistic elements. Mr Stevenson also related the fascinating story of a dispute over this matter with D L Moody where Darby came out the more Calvinistic. (Try here for that). William Kelly, commenting of Ephesians 1:3 wrote that " It is when Christ has begun to dawn on the soul that you begin to realise that you have been lying in all that is dark and loathsome, though a glimmer of hope may break through the clouds. You are seriously conscious of evil things to which you were insensible before. This is an effect of God's mighty and gracious operation The thing that was most interesting was the way Darby's Calvinism (if we may call it that) sprang out of his dispensationalism. Darby and others would say they got their doctrines from the Bible but the probably root is in Anglicanism, the 39 Articles being fundamentally Reformed, not Lutheran or Arminian. Arminianism began to eat into Brethrenism in the 1920s.

Perhaps we can finish with a great quote from George Muller (found here)

"Before this period I had been much opposed to the doctrines of election, particular redemption, and final persevering grace; so much so that, a few days after my arrival at Teignmouth, I called election a devilish doctrine. I did not believe that I had brought myself to the Lord, for that was too manifestly false; but yet I held, that I might have resisted finally. And further, I knew nothing about the choice of God's people, and did not believe that the child of God, when once made so, was safe for ever. In my fleshly mind I had repeatedly said, If once I could prove that I am a child of God for ever, I might go back into the world for a year or two, and then return to the Lord, and at last be saved. But now I was brought to examine these precious truths by the word of God. Being made willing to have no glory of my own in the conversion of sinners, but to consider myself merely as an instrument; and being made willing to receive what the Scriptures said; I went to the Word, reading the New Testament from the beginning, with a particular reference to these truths. To my great astonishment I found that the passages which speak decidedly for election and persevering grace, were about four times as many as those which speak apparently against these truths; and even those few, shortly after, when I had examined and understood them, served to confirm me in the above doctrines.
"As to the effect which my belief in these doctrines had on me, I am constrained to state, for God's glory, that though I am still exceedingly weak, and by no means so dead to the lusts of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, as I might and as I ought to be, yet, by the grace of God, I have walked more closely with Him since that period. My life has not been so variable, and I may say that I have lived much more for God than before. And for this have I been strengthened by the Lord, in a great measure, through the instrumentality of these truths. For in the time of temptation, I have been repeatedly led to say: Should I thus sin? I should only bring misery into my soul for a time, and dishonour God; for, being a son of God for ever, I should have to be brought back again, though it might be in the way of severe chastisement. Thus, I say, the electing love of God in Christ (when I have been able to realise it) has often been the means of producing holiness, instead of leading me into sin. It is only the notional apprehension of such truths, the want of having them in the heart, whilst they are in the head, which is dangerous."

Sex Chromosome List

Nearly every cell in the normal human body has 23 pairs of chromosomes (46 in total). One copy of each pair is inherited from the mother, the other from the father. The first 22 pairs (autosomes) are numbered 1 to 22. The 23rd pair are the sex chromosomes. Aneuploidy (chromosome abnormalities) occur in 1 of 160 live births and Down's syndrome is the best known of these. Here is a list of recognised chromosomal arrangements. The list was prompted by discovering that one of our sons is XXY and is drawn from Wikipedia. Many of the conditions are quite rare and knowledge about them is in its infancy. They are not hereditary but happen in the early stages of pregnancy. Numbers 3 and 5 in my list are the normal, expected combinations, which most of us have.

1. YY - such babies never survive to term

2. X - a female with Turner syndrome (c 1 in 2000 live births)
3. XX - a female (homogametic sex)

4. XXX - a female with a syndrome (c 1 in 1000 live births)
5. XY - a male (heterogametic sex)
6. XXY - a male with Klinefelter syndrome (c 1 in 500 live births)
7. XYY - a male with a syndrome (c 1 in 1000 live births)
8. XXXY - a male with a form of Klinefelter syndrome (c 1 in 50,000 live births)
9. XXYY - a male with a syndrome (1 in 18-40,000)
10. XX/XY - a very rare condition that often leads to intersex problems

Funeral of Graham Harrison

I was in South Wales yesterday for the funeral of Graham Harrison at Emmanuel Church, Newport. I stayed at my sister's in Cwmbran the night before and she accompanied me to the funeral. She was a member of the congregation there for six months many years ago. I was surprised that Emmanuel was big enough to accommodate everyone but there is extra room available and so the 200-250 filled the place but not to overflowing. I was not able to stay for refreshments but it was good to be at the service in the church sat next to Mark Thomas and at the committal at St Woolo's cemetery. Bernard Lewis, the present minister, led the service. It was good to see him and his wife Linda and Ken Brownell and John Palmer present. We were all exact contemporaries at LTS. Robert Strivens read, Wyn Hughes prayed, Trevor McMillen, an elder, gave thanks and Stephen Clark preached. It was all very helpful. Geoff and Iola, my in-laws, gave us a lift to the grave, where, in the sunshine, Neville Rees read, Hywel Jones prayed and Bernard did the committal to the grave where Mr Harrison's father had been buried in 1989. There is something solemn and reassuring about a Christian burial.

There must have been around fifty ministers present all told. It was not possible to speak to everyone I would like to have. It was good to be reminded of Mr Harrison's faithfulness (he was referred to as Mr Harrison throughout). We were reminded of his lack of small talk, his preaching, his sense of humour, his pastoral abilities, his very practical bent and his solidity in a crisis. Digby Williams and John Edmonds, both ministers, grew up at different times in the church. John recalled the day when the old Alma Street was being knocked down and they were meeting in the YMCA. Great days they sounded.

I always find a trip to Newport strange. I was born there but I do not know my way around well. I noticed my Auntie Mavis's grave among the hundreds there in that cemetery. I don't know where the graves of other family members are found.

Lord's Day June 2 2013

blueletterbible.org

Bit late with this because it's been so busy this week. Paul Levy complained somewhere because those he knows who report on their Sundays never seem to have bad ones. I know what he means but for me it's the week days that are bad not the Lord's days. So in the morning we began with communion and that was followed by a sermon on the closing verses of 1 Corinthians 4. My two main points were about "You and your fathers in Christ" and "The danger of arrogance in God's kingdom and how God deals with it". In the evening we came to the penultimate chapter of Numbers and thought about Christ and the cities of refuge.

Prison work

I did something I'd never done before last week - I went into a prison. For many years Gerard Chrispin of CPR has worked with others to reach prisoners and he is currently seeking to hand over some of his responsibilities to others and it was thought possible that I may be involved. This initial visit was an exploratory one. As expected there was an understandable lot of rigmarole with keys and security but once we were all sat down in a circle in the very nice chapel they have in our nearest prison things were pretty straightforward. About 10 of a possible 15 or 20 prisoners turned up and we carried on through the book on Mark's Gospel Mark Time that Gerard has skilfully put together. Brad Franklin led and Gerard and his wife Phillippa were also present on this occasion. We spent much of the morning on the end of Mark 7 to much profit I trust and then adjourned to the Breakout Café across the road for a post mortem and lunch on Gerard, which can't be bad. So once this art history course is over perhaps this will be taking up my time in future. Watch this space.